Chapter 33: Fight in the middle of a maze

The battle in the large room had concluded in a bloodbath. This time, they had to fight against almost twenty warriors, while few of them were of the rank 3 and even one of the rank 4. Only some of them were made prisoners, with the others all dead.

They had begun this assault with more than twenty warriors, but now they were less than that. Even the captain, a bonafide rank 5 Beginner Warrior, couldn't be everywhere. In the end, a warrior wasn't a god, and one alone was too weak to make a huge changement in a battle. At least, that was when the warrior was still in a Beginner rank.

Exhaustion was starting to take over onto everyone as they were all catching their breath.

Matthew headed in the direction of Rohan, and near him, began to speak.

"You fight well indeed, but you don't seem to be accustomed to this much blood." He respected Rohan for his talent, and also for the way he fought, but a sneer still appeared on his face when he had seen him standing there with a blank expression in the middle of the fight. "You should fight more, at the end it becomes a normal occurrence."

"Yeah sure, I should definitely have a to-do list in my agenda, with one of my priorities being to kill 5 people each day." Rohan rolled his eyes before he went away from this psychopath.

After a few more minutes, Mark, who had been sent on scouting at the end of the fight, came back. His expression was dark.

"We have a problem Captain. There are a lot of paths, and each one stretches in all directions. It seems like there is a huge basement around us."

"Hmm." The captain squinted his eyes at these words. "So that explains why there were so few of these rats here. How many passages?"

"A lot. And they could go everywhere. Should we bring back more reinforcements?"

"For what? To let soldiers encounter a group of warriors?" He let go a sigh. "We don't have a choice."

Rohan paid attention to the captain scanning the place around him, perceiving the glint in his eyes, he felt that it wasn't going the right way.

"Listen to me!"

Finally, the leader took his decision, maybe it wasn't the good solution, but he will still pick this one. He advanced in the center of the room, his boots splashing on the red liquid.

"There is a fucking maze spreading around us. These dogs working for this Bradley are more devious than what we thought of. We can't let them fly away! So we have no choice. We will form small teams to scout all the places, and at the sight of any individual, kill."

This order struck Rohan in the heart as he frowned his brows. What kind of injonctions was that? Why kill if they can arrest them, are they all mad for blood in this damn place?

After the teams were made, in which Rohan didn't have the slightest choice, a short pause of half an hour was taken for everyone to recover their strength. Some of them even drank a potion to regenerate their mana.

The team of Rohan was composed of three warriors. Rohan himself, by luck or bad luck, Matthew, and the last one was the youngest one. His name was Halem or something. Not that Rohan cared about it.

The trio looked at each other for a few seconds before setting up in one of the paths. The other teams were doing the same, and soon, all the warriors spreaded in this dark maze, only lit by the few torches they had brought with them.

The walls were made of stone, the ground was made of stone, and the roof was made of stone. All these dark rocks were creating strange monsters of shadow as the flame of the torches advanced forward. At some place, some water dropped on the floor with a distinct plick plock, only interrupted by the loud steps of Rohan and the two other warriors.

Matthew, who had taken the lead of this small group, stopped brutally to move. Halem, trailing behind him, almost bumped on the robust form in front of him, while Rohan, closing the march, focused on whatever had made the murderer-looking man stopped so suddenly.

"What? Why did you stop? Are the great Matthew, the Dog of Elia, scared of the dark?" Rohan had a strange expression on his face after hearing what this Halem had said. If Matthew decided to kill this young boy here and now, should he turn a blind eye, help him, or prevent him from doing the deed?

Contrary to Rohan's expectation, Matthew didn't say anything, and kept staring at the distance.

"Hey! Are you dea…"

"Keep talking and I rip off your tongue before gauging out your eyes to make you eat the whole." A deep voice, with a threat almost palpable, left the mouth of the warrior as he turned his face to look behind him.

Halem, scared to death after hearing such an eerie, even bloodthirsty voice, let a wimp sound in the dark, while he couldn't help but shudder as he saw the frightful man before him looking toward him. But it wasn't Halem that Matthew wanted to look.

"Rohan, I can hear the cracking of fire in front of us, maybe a few dozen meters, but not much." Rohan leaned on the side to look at the darkness in front of him. If there really was a torch in front of them, he should be able to see it. But without waiting for more information, he extinguished the torch he had in his hand, plunging the team in the dark.

He wouldn't put his life blindly in the hands of Matthew, but he still believed the words coming from an experienced rank 4 Beginner Warrior. If he took the time to warn them about something, there was a not negligible chance that a shit storm was coming.

They kept marching forward into the dark, silently taking out their weapons. At this moment, for no reason, it struck Rohan's mind. Here he was, marching alongside two unknown people in the middle of the dark corridor inside a huge basement, at the research of all the bandits lurking inside this colossal maze. And all of that only for a few potions as rewards. Was he mad when he had accepted this mission?

When he had heard this woman, Elia, promised him with a weak mana compression potion, he was indeed interested. After all, the one given to him by Edwin Chrisfold back in the duchy of Barnes was now probably smuggled by a random soldier who was lucky enough to capture his horse. Just thinking about all these lost potions made Rohan's mood plummeting toward the abyss in just a few seconds.

Muffled voice bursted from the dark. The trio stopped for a second, with a serious expression. They had found their targets! They looked at each other, and even Halem nodded his head at his companions. They didn't know how many enemies there would be, but that wouldn't be an easy fight in any way.

As they advanced, a little light could be seen, stretching on the ground, trying to travel the most distance possible. It came from behind a wooden door, standing in their way.

The trio approached to stick their heads into the door, discerning how many warriors they were inside. Laugher filtered by the wooden obstacle made their way into their ears, and strong bursts of voice seemed to fill the room. They couldn't distinguish exactly how many there were, but at least they knew it was only a handful of them.

With a last look, and after strengthening their resolve, Matthew barged inside the room after smashing the wooden door with a violent kick. For a few seconds, there was no sound, then, as if the time had decided to wake up, an explosion of vociferations welcomed Rohan as he entered the room, followed by the clear noises of swords being unsheathed.

inside the room, three men were sitting around a table with the smell of beer floating in the air. Behind, there was a staircase going up, probably toward another building, and another door was on the side presumably going back into a dark corridor. The three thug-looking men, interrupted by the destroyed door, watched stupidly in this direction for a few seconds. Then, as they saw a man enter with a sword, they snapped back from their daze, and quickly got up while taking out their weapon as they shouted at the newcomers.

But Rohan and his group didn't let them have the time to prepare, and since they were already under too much alcohol, the winner was decided from the start.

Rohan rushed toward the warriors at the left of the table, and jumped on the fourth empty chair in front of him before throwing himself against the warrior. Of course, he would never have done such a dangerous action if his opponent was well prepared, but taking advantage of the surprise effect, and the time during which the warrior was trying sluggishly to draw his sword, Rohan didn't hesitate to charge forward at full speed.

With a powerful blow, he slashed diagonally at the enemy who tried to defend himself with a shocked expression. As the two swords connected, the ruffian groaned under the numbness spreading in his arm, but before he could do anything, his breath was cut off by a kick crushing his stomach. He felt as if a horse had smashed into him. His feet entangled against the chair behind him, making him violently fall on the floor while he let go of his weapon. Before he could get up, the tip of a cold iron touched his throat, paralyzing him.

The other fights finished in the same way, and the victors were easily determined. It was so fast, that not even a skill was used. Among these three enemies, one was dead, one was heavily injured and the last one was almost without any injury. It was Matthew who killed his opponent.

Rohan had only seen a glimpse of the way Matthew was fighting when he was in the large room with tens of enemies, and this fight was too short to understand fully how someone was fighting, but still, he was sure to have an idea. This guy. He didn't care at all about his injuries.

A long slash could be seen on his left arm, staining his armor with a light red liquid.